Nowadays the firefighting from the air is achieved with aircrafts (hydroplanes or land planes) and helicopters that carry water and drop it in the seat of the fire, usually with chemical additives, such as retardants of the boiling point of water or foamers to make difficult the combustion once the mixed is spread.
In the insect pests situation are used light aircrafts that drop the pesticide or insecticide on the release point.
In the case of acting on atmospheric phenomena are used from medium light aircrafts up to heavy aircrafts or even rockets.
The process must be achieved to a very low height and in “visual flight” conditions that is to say by day in full view of the fire or field to be fumigated and of the surrounding orography.
Once the product is dropped over the area, the aircraft must returns to reload. In the case of fires, water in a swamp, lake or a nearby sea when are used hydroplanes or helicopters or in an airport, aerodrome or a prepared place for this purpose, in the case of land planes but depending on the geographical environment and the infrastructures in the fired area, the average time taken by the aircraft in returning to a dropped position again could be set in not less than fifteen minutes.
In fumigation situation or in acting on atmospheric phenomena the light aircrafts or aircrafts must return to the supplying base to reload the products to be dropped, so it could involve long time-outs between one action and the next one depending on the distance to said base, taking into account also that said phenomena in such cases could be moving (for instance, locusts plague, stormy cloud) what in the same way increases the time between the operations.
Relating to forest fires, with regard to the effective extinction area that an aircraft can undertake, also depends on varied and difficult factors which are hard to evaluate such as the type, quantity and condition of the burning vegetation, the wind, the prevailing smoke and the turbulence, as well as the height and precision of the dropping, what in turn can depend on the orography environment and evidently on the quantity of liquid that the aircraft is able to transport, since it could vary from 500 to 6000 litres, even existing aircrafts with a greater capacity, but with the inconvenient that owing to its big size its maneuverability is limited particularly to a very low height and also due to its size they are land planes requiring a lot of infrastructure to be used. Furthermore, its reaction and rotation times are a lot more higher than those of the small or mediums aircrafts, consequently they are only real effective at very certain geographic or orography environments, therefore for the purposes of the concerning studies the extinguished useful area is considered in a range from the 500 m2 for the helicopters or small planes up to the 2000 m2 in the best of the cases for medium planes. In any case the statistics and data on this matter are few, vague and even contradictory depending on if the source of information comes from the plane builders and contractors or on the other hand operators or official institutions.
In fumigation situations are used light aircrafts that have a relatively limited maneuverability and endurance, as well as they have to fly to a very low height and with peak load, therefore this kind of flight is usually quite risky.
Nowadays, the action on atmospheric phenomena is performed by light aircrafts or conventional aircrafts that generally in the case of, for example, having to act on a stormy cell involves a risk for the air operation.
What is really obvious is the great importance of the air means in the battle against the forest fires, pests and atmospheric phenomena, as well as that the accuracy and opportunity of the dropping and the continuance in these ones are the most important factors to achieve the higher effectiveness.
The closest prior art (European Patent no. EP0320554) refers to the use of fighter-bomber with cylindrical containers charged with a fire-extinguisher agent (water or water with additives) and attached to the fuselage at the hooks used for transporting the armament by the combat airplanes. The fighter goes towards the fire and once on it, it aims with the visor of the fighter on area of fire and according to an angle of diving and pre-established speed throws the container with the water towards the area of fire (as if it was throwing a free-fall bomb which is used in military operations). The mentioned container charged with water realizes a “ballistic” path (not guided) towards the area of the fire. Later, when the container is approximating to the fire and through a delayed fuse at a pre-established time according to the ballistic calculations, the container opens itself to spread its liquid over the fire in order to extinguish it. The container destroys in the air once it has thrown its load.